Sensoreveal

Summary: A couple choose a multi-sensory cinema for their third date. And then it chooses them...

Chapter I

Carolyn
tilted her umbrella, gripped firmly in black leather gloves, to better peer
through the rain at the clock tower. The filigree hands pointed at twenty past
seven. He was late. Only by five minutes past the time they had agreed on in
earlier emails, but he was late. Carolyn added this to the mental notebook she
had been keeping on Kevin.

A hand gently patted her left shoulder,
making her quietly cough on the e-cig she had just pressed to her lips. She
turned to face Kevin’s easy smile. The line in the notebook became a little
smudged.

“Hello Caro,” he greeted her, with a peck on
both cheeks. She was not entirely sure about the nickname. Usually she would
only sullenly allow her (older) brother and (younger) sister to get away with it,
but when it was said with such warm enthusiasm and with such a dazzling,
dimpled grin, she found it harder to protest. The two were on their third date.
They had met on a dating website, Carolyn (‘Carolyn1234’) having messaged Kevin
(‘AutoCad’). She had selected him on the basis of the dashing smile, age,
income, interesting yet tolerable hobbies, and the various calculations she had
made by reading between the lines of the anecdotes and witticisms which
littered his profile. She rarely engaged with those that messaged her first;
the ones who had detected an ice queen and believed themselves to be rogue
king. She knew what she wanted. Children. She had been too career-focussed over
the last dozen or so years, stolidly building her way up from junior lawyer in
Deakin Wenham & Baker Solicitors to a level where partner was in her reach.
As her friends invited her to be godmother and uploaded pictures on seemingly
every digital social platform available to them of their toddler’s birthday
parties, it was during one rare free evening she had given up
to babysit that she began to realise what she might be missing out on as she
tucked the little person into bed.

“A pleasure to see you again, Kevin.” She
rarely smiled, knowing what it did to the creases on her face, but she allowed
herself a small one for him.

“Shall we go in? And get out of this
horrible weather.” He had cycled there, whereas she had taken a taxi and was
relatively dry. That hand on her shoulder again, this time steering her towards
the cinema’s entrance. Her tan heels clicked on the pavement, satisfyingly
bringing her petite frame inches closer to her date’s shoulder. The canopy
shouted at passers-by that tonight they could see Unterseeboot and The Waitress,
but the budding couple were there to see Zombollywood.
Zombollywood, although not Carolyn’s usual
choice of film genre, was to be presented in ‘Sensoreveal’. The whole town of
Tredwell had been buzzing with the news of the installation of this
multi-sensory screen in their local cinema. Kevin was buzzing at the prospect
of zombies. Carolyn’s phone was buzzing inside her suede handbag. She fished
around for it and angling her manicured fingertip carefull, switched it off.
Previous dates had walked out on her for taking overlong phone calls where she
proceeded to talk sense into some poor inept secretary or intern. She had fixed
photocopiers in this way, prevented meltdowns, and often secured clients for the
company. What it had not done was net her a husband.

They queued together for popcorn, Carolyn
opting for a small unsalted portion, given she had been watching her figure
since the age of fourteen. Kevin, who had only watched his figure when he had come
off his mountain bike, broken his arm and watched his friends cover his cast in
obscene marker pen scrawls went for a large portion of salted, with a
bucket-sized soft drink.

“Would you mind holding this while I visit
the Ladies?” With both of his (tanned, broad – don’t think these details had
escaped the notebook) hands full, Kevin offered the crook of his elbow for
Carolyn’s carton. “I’ll keep it warm for you,” Kevin said brightly. Carolyn
rewarded him with a bigger smile this time, that showed expensive dentistry
which she had bought to conceal the brown stains of chain smoking since she had
moved out of her parents’ home at sixteen. She would be in the Ladies soon and
be able to fix the cracks in the make-up that beam would have caused on her now
35-year-old face.

Carolyn opened the door of the toilets to
the sight of a male employee of Tredwell Cinema straightening his uniform. She
gasped and took a step backwards, half-closing the door, then half-opening it
again to apologise. “Sorry, I thought this was the Ladies.”

“It is,” the man replied. He was an
odd-looking fellow. Squat, pigeon-toed, hook-nosed, with a jagged scar in almost
the shape of a question mark on his right arm. He looked too old to be working
there, his rheumy eyes staring unapologetically at Carolyn’s stern grey ones.
“All the cubicles in the gents were blocked up.”

“Oh, I see, err, I’ll just give you a minute
then…” The strange worker grunted in acknowledgement. She pulled the door fully
closed this time, but not before noting him taking out a broken-toothed comb to
run through greasy black hair peppered with specks of grey.

In the maroon corridor, her embarrassment
quickly switching to annoyance, she tapped her toe impatiently. Weren’t there
staff toilets? Glancing around the wall, she was pleased to note Kevin patiently
examining the posters of upcoming films, rather than the legs of the
many attractive women who were there in giggling droves, all ready to squeal at
rotting flesh and gropes from eager boyfriends.

The door swung open again, and the
greasy-haired man shuffled out, blowing his nose on a hanky that looked like it
had last been washed around the time Fritz Lang picked up a pen. Carolyn
pressed herself to the wall so he could pass, and he nodded solemn thanks at
her, while his eyes thanked the modest top of the line of cleavage she had
carefully selected to display. With a quiet tut Carolyn entered the loos,
relieved to be alone at last.

“Thank
you,” Carolyn said graciously as she claimed her popcorn from her obedient date.

As
they handed over their tickets for the smiling assistant to tear, they were in
return handed a small white paper cup each, about the size of a shot glass,
with a clear liquid filling it almost to its brim. “Compliments of Tredwell
cinema,” the pimply ticket checker explained. “A sign will appear on screen
letting you know when to drink it. It’s very important not to touch a drop
until then, you don’t want the surprise to be all out of sequence!” Carolyn lifted
a thin wrist to sniff hers. It didn’t smell of anything. It might as well be
water. In fact, given how much of their budget the cinema had proudly declared they
had spent on the installation of the new screen to any press outlet that would
listen, it probably was.

“Well isn’t this fun?” Kevin was easily
pleased. Carolyn liked that.

Despite
Kevin’s tardiness, there was still time for a little bit of small talk while
the other cinema-goers found their places through the dim light surrounding
them. Kevin rolled his soggy coat up in a ball and placed it under his seat,
answering questions about his week spent in building design. Carolyn’s clasped
her bag rather primly on her lap. She may have learned to turn her phone off,
but still felt the urge to have it close by. It was like a plastic limb to her.

Their exchange was interrupted by “oohs” as
the lights were dimmed further. The crackling of dozens of bags of sweets was
amplified as voices fell. The eerie yet familiar mood was broken by the
trailers that crashed and thrashed on to the screen. The booming assault
finally gave way to the certificate signalling the horror of Zombollywood was about to
launch. The tension in the room now overtook the crackling of the sweet packets.
Kevin gave Carolyn’s hand a brief friendly squeeze, and she silently thanked
the ambitious heavy metal score with its Hindi vocals on the opening credits
for drowning out the intake of breath this caused her. She scrambled in her
handbag for her 3D glasses before he tried to touch her hands again. It had
been so long since she actually liked a date she was with, her mind was having
trouble communicating to her body how exactly to respond.

Nothing particularly ‘multi-sensory’
happened for the first twenty minutes, but then there came a scene where
zombies had to traverse a river, whilst ridiculously swathed in colourful saris
which spread out like water lilies. As the deadly green-tinged lumps
inelegantly flopped into the muddy water, the audience were squirted with (what
they hoped was) water from devices concealed in the backs of the chairs in
front of them. Those in the front row had their ankles splashed by the same devices
located under their seats. There were deafening screams by the dampened and
delighted punters as the actors tried to recapture their attention by showing
their brown incisors emerging from putrid maws to tear into human bodies.

Carolyn, always prepared, brought a packet
of tissues out of her bag to pat herself down with, offering one to Kevin. She
noticed small shimmering droplets glistening on his stubble, and crossed her stockinged
legs. A question whispered over to her on popcorn breath: “Wonder what on
earth’ll get thrown at us next?” Inhaling the scent of his demolished snack and
sandalwood aftershave, she only smiled demurely in response, putting on a good
show of being transfixed by the events unfolding in front of her.

The shrieks gradually died down as something
like a story tried to keep itself together amidst the gratuitous gore. Approximately
fifteen minutes after gunfire aimed at bindis and dance sequences that evoked
screams of a different nature – namely laughter – from viewers, a large horde
of zombies were penned into a hut which was then set fire to by a man in a
three quarter length coat, its intricate embroidery shot through with flashes
of gold that matched the wearer’s teeth. Black, curled nails screeched
uselessly at windows, and creamy eyes bulged in sockets.

Faint revolted gasps began to sound around
the building, as it filled with an unfamiliar smell. A bit like pork, Carolyn
thought, as her delicate nostrils twitched. With a layer of something else. Something
musky and sweet. Somewhere behind her right shoulder, there was the
unmistakable sound of a teenage girl retching. Somewhat exaggeratedly, as
certain teenage girls like to do in many of their public outings. Carolyn
turned and glimpsed a clumsy hand at the end of a white jumper sleeve
attempting to comfort the girl by patting her back too heavily, causing her
nose to dip into the empty popcorn container she was using as a receptacle, in
turn causing real sounds of disgust. Despite her unease, Carolyn found herself having
to hide a smirk at the spectacle. It distracted her from thinking that
undefined base note could be the stench of actual decaying, once-human skin and
bone.

As a bonus touch, somebody must have turned
up the heat. The room became uncomfortably hot within minutes. Luminous shards of
flyers and any other substitute fans that came to hand fluttered in the
surrounding darkness, and jumpers were huffily draped over the backs of seats.

As the film cut to a scene depicting an
Indian beauty being brought a soothing tea before retiring to bed, oblivious to
the carnage mere miles from her home, a female voice from speakers instructed
it was now time to drink from the paper cups members of the audience had collected
on their way in. Carolyn thought hers tasted like gripe water. Kevin said his
reminded him of Lucozade.

He was lapping it up in every sense. “Well,
you certainly get what you pay for!” he commented, obviously. Carolyn arched
her eyebrows, nodded her blonde bob absently, and awaited the next sensory
attack.

Thankfully the smell began to fade, as the
storyline progressed before their shielded eyes. Carolyn self-consciously
pushed the thick 3D glasses up towards the bridge of her nose, hoping they weren’t
leaving streaks in her make-up, which was probably already melting down her
neck due to the theatre’s stuffiness. Some cinema-goers were hushing the
relieved chatter of those who had been most sensitive to the curious smell.

3D entertainment took up much of the next
twenty minutes or so, with the audience ducking as axes seems to come for their
heads and raising their hands in fear as the screen appeared to explode
outward, splinters of wood falling upon them. A light rain of lollypop sticks
showered the front few rows at this part; Kevin letting his disapproval at the
downturn of the special effects be known. Carolyn politely agreed, but thoughts
of dreadful barbeques still danced around her mind. Swallowing carefully, a
movement from the bottom left of the screen drew her attention. She spied some
sort of continuity error, a large-nosed cameraman or some other member of the
production team, with arms crossed, watching and seemingly enjoying the film.
Glancing around to the other corners, she noticed that no shadowy ushers seemed
visible, no outlines of heads appeared at the projection window, and the
lighting for the exit signs was turned off.

The action was momentarily interrupted as an instruction for audience members to place their hands on
the armrests appeared on screen. A murmur rumbled throughout as everybody obeyed.

But to unquestionably obey can often lead to
questionable consequences. On this occasion, it led to manacles shooting smoothly out
of the armrests, pinning every last viewer to their seat.

Carolyn
twitched like a startled rabbit trapped in a snare. For someone so used to being
in control, managing others, calling the shots, this was not the laughing
matter Kevin seemed to think it was.

While the film started up again from where
it had left off, and the cinema became a writhing mass of hands trying to
escape, feet pummeling the floor in a drumroll of gullible joy at the
experience, with her heart hammering in her chest she said “I need to leave.”

“What?” said Kevin, his eyes still on the
unfolding drama.

“I said I need to leave.”

“I don’t think that’s happening any time
soon, Caro!” he said, the amusement in his voice strengthening her resolve to
get as far away from the place as quickly as she possibly could. An image of the mound of
paperwork on her bedside table flickered into her mind, and she felt a strange
pang of homesickness.

There was nothing to do but sit and hope to
be released quickly. The elaborate mechanism did not seem to have anything to
do with the storyline, Carolyn thought, when her mind got on track to the
present again.

There was more milking of the 3D technology,
now that viewers were unable to remove their glasses. Bullets fired above their heads and
glittering saris sparkled as ridiculous battles bled on. A cut back to the
beauty, who this time had family members fussing around her while she daintily
sipped her ever-present tea, preparing to be wed. This film really was a bad
idea, concluded Carolyn. Even Kevin’s chatter had subsided to faint snorts.

The
film then froze. Another trick or a fault in the projectionist’s room? In the
silence Carolyn realised those sounds she heard Kevin making was actually
snoring, not laboured breathing. Even in the fright of the moment she jotted
‘snorer’ down in a rather overused column in the notebook concealed inside her
head. Although with the room so excessively darkened, from the glow of the
paused screen she noticed everybody around her had followed Kevin’s suit.
There only movement was the rising and falling of chests.

The
crew member with the unfortunate snout she
had spotted earlier shuffled up to the screen until Carolyn could count
his
nose hairs. His chin was streaked as if he’d been drooling, and when he
leered
at her she could only see three rotten teeth remaining in his mouth. She
dug
her heels into the floor, scraped her wrists on the unyielding shackles,
eyes never leaving the pixelated ones fixed hungrily on hers.

They were the only two animated characters
in parallel rooms filled with slumped bodies; the difference being her cohorts
were intact and his were torn apart, entrails and glass shards from windows
which had been broken in the last kerfuffle making a slick carpet of the wooden
cabin floor on which he stood.

“Hello darlin’,” the creature snarled.
Carolyn’s blood ran cold at the sound of its unearthly voice. It was of course
the voice of the man she had seen in the toilets earlier, but filtered through
speakers it crackled as though coming from a place no-one traveled to and came back
sane, if indeed they came back at all.

“I need to ask you a favour, princess.”
Carolyn wriggled and almost turned her head 360° desperately looking round for
help. No reaction. John McClane could have run in, guns blazing,
and nobody would have raised so much as an eyebrow.

“No use love, everybody’s conked out.” He
managed to clear enough crust out of an eye to perform a comedy wink for his
audience of one. “I’ve got something for you.” Carolyn’s eyes dropped
downwards. “No, not that, you filthy mucker!” he cackled. He pulled something
out of a pocket of his stained trousers, which may once have been grass green.
“This ‘ere,” he said, brandishing a long-tipped needle emerging from an
off-white tube roughly the size of a cat’s leg, “is the antidote, my lovely.”
He turned it from side to side, as though to hypnotise Carolyn, and the needle
glinted in the remaining light. “Theirs was just a sleeping draught,” he
explained. “Yours is actual poison.

“Now, to get this antidote, you’re going to
have to do something for me, and do it well. We’re missing a leading lady. And
we want a sequel. And we know what you want.
We need you to come up here. Or you can stay there with a bunch of dodos, and
continue your dodo life.” Carolyn wondered who ‘we’ were.

“To take the antidote, my little lamb, you've got to come through to this side. That means giving up the career, giving up the
apartment you own with all your precious trinkets and knickknacks, and coming
to work for me. We need someone with your skill and determination.” Was that a
degree of respect creeping into his sneering tone?

Carolyn’s racing thoughts threatened to take
her closer to the edge of hysteria, and dive right off. Thoughts swam through
her head entertaining notions of elaborate pranks constructed by Kevin – he
seemed like the sort full of surprises in the brief time she had got to know
him. She became aware of both his presence and his absence next to her, finding
another surprise in the fact she missed him. Another idea angled for her
attention: what if it had actually been acid she drank and this was all a bad
trip? No, the walls were not swirling; everything was static. Except for the
hideous man, who continued to shake the tube. She wished he wouldn’t shake it
quite so much.

“You’re not giving me much of a choice
here.”

“Yes, that’s right, little one.” Her eyes
narrowed at that, as she became more aware of the height the heels afforded
her. Inches of lies.

“Release me, then.” Her hands lifting in the
manacles in a fed up gesture.

Her
opponent and would-be employer slowly ambled to the lower right hand corner of
the screen and appeared to push a lever. The manacles slide back into their arm
rests, so neatly that nobody would ever be able to tell in a dark cinema they
were there.

“And now?”

“You come up here, darlin’ ”.

Carolyn
squeezed past Kevin and the others on her row, stepping over bags and discarded
wrappers with as much grace as she could muster, then began the gradual ascent
to the stage. She was now face to face with the strange little man, first an irritating
toilet obstacle, now her only hope of survival. With resignation, she reached a
hand out to touch the smoky screen, which was promptly snatched by a cold and
calloused one, and she fell forwards into another world.

The
audience slowly came to, and were greeted with the sight of the end credits
rolling. Kevin blinked, turned to face Carolyn and saw only a folded up seat.
Her coat remained, with the black leather gloves poking out of the pockets. The
crowd trundled out of the theatre, Kevin overhearing many of them saying what
a good time they had had, although it had been a little fuzzy at the end.

Fast-forward
nine months.

Kevin
closed the tab of the dating website he had been listlessly browsing. He went
to check The Tredwell Times, to check on developments for his petition to close
Tredwell Cinema’s multi-sensory screen, citing health and safety fears. His attention
was caught by an animated advertisement on the left hand side of the page, next
to the announcement of the winner of Tredwell’s cutest baby.

Zombollywood 2:
Zombabywould
would be coming to Tredwell cinema next month.

Write a Review
Did you enjoy my story? Please let me know what you think by leaving a review! Thanks,
KarenMcDermott

Natalia DeParis:
I loved the story! I couldn’t stop reading, the story caught me from the beginning to the end. The only thing I found strange is Emerson forget about Abigail so fast, and Madeline forget about Lucas .... but at the same time I know that the werewolf mark always drives them crazy for each other. I...

Angela Rose:
I really managed to connect with your characters in the 6 chapters that were written. I'm left now wanting more so I hope there's to be an update soon! Most of the time I had no idea what was about to happen and I love that in a book. The suspense and wondering makes a story so much better, there...

kisabel2211:
I loved it! But I strongly recommend that you be careful changing to one pov to another’s and to first person to third person.... it’s confusing at times and it change a little the feeling of the book. But overall it pretty good and I loved it!

Paty Rubio Navarrete:
Its targeted suspens and mistery i know when I see a book its going to be a great book hope it gets better and hope not to put it down till the end and going to see if I can get my hold on more books like this one

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